An author I’m converting a book for emailed me this:

“I have been doing a bit of reading and also listening to other writers talk about this issue. I'm strongly inclined to go for DRM-free. What is your advice?”

As this author’s ebook project was simply a conversion to mobi and ePub so she could distribute it herself with Amazon and Apple, my reply was:

This week I have had the pleasure of working on a Word document to Kindle (mobi) conversion for a conference. The time it takes to print and distribute hard copies of reports and booklets for meetings and events means that some companies are considering ebooks. Buying Kindles or other ebook reading devices is an investment for the future and although it may have an initial outlay, it will save money in the long-term.

I can convert Word documents to mobi for meetings. This is usually a simpler process than converting them for publishing and I charge my standard hourly rate. For this current project, the documents had complex numbering, which had the potential to get rearranged when I placed the document into InDesign (the software I use to convert ebooks).

Below are the steps I followed for the Word to Mobi conversion. Not every project is the same, of course, so use your judgement when considering if all the following would apply to your ebook.

Some ebook authors are concerned about including hyperlinks in their documents that take the reader's attention away from the book.

I recently had a query about getting back to iBooks from Safari after a reader has pressed a hyperlink in an ebook on an iPad. My response was:

This is a user-knowledge issue, not so much an ebook issue.

To get back to the ebook in iBooks after clicking a hyperlink a user can do either of the following on an iPad 2 with the lastest operating system:

1. Four fingers swipe sideways to 'alt tab' between running programs (forwards and backwards through running apps)
2. Double press home button to see all running programs and press on iBooks

There are similar operating system methods of switching back and forth between programs on all readers.

This is not something an ebook designer can control. It is about people's familiarity with their device.

I am enjoying working with Big Aussie Giveaway, a social media marketing promotion site that launched in January 2012, as one of their message posters. My goal has been to interact on Facebook and Twitter on their behalf every day for at least 10 minutes to try to add value for all users and get more followers for Big Aussie Giveaway.

This, in turn, helps all the advertisers and followers of Big Aussie Giveaway to raise their profile, make more sales and win more bargains and freebies. In only 5 weeks the results have been absolutely outstanding including:

• 2,500+ Australian's 'like' us on Facebook
• 1,300+ follow us on Twitter
• Over 1,300 people register to our website.

I am learning iBooks Author at the moment, a way to produce beautiful multi-touch ebooks. These are fixed page layout books for iPad that include interactive hot spots and can play videos, music, audio and 3D images.

I am seeking some content to practice with. I'm not sure if you have any projects needing a designer, but if you do, please let me know and I might consider doing it for you. The project I'm looking to publish needs to have text, images and video, or at least text, images and audio. It must be primarily a reading/learning or entertainment book, as multi-touch is suited to books, not to games, which can be done as apps.

Send me your submission including full text for the book, links to video files or description of what you have and samples of images. You must hold all the appropriate rights, as per my copyright policy. If the book has been published in another format, please describe the details in your email.

I'm enjoying being involved in social media marketing on Facebook and Twitter. There are actually a lot of businesses - large and small - with pages on Facebook and Twitter. It's time-consuming to manage, but can be done by any business, from a sole trader to a massive corporation. You can even have a shopfront inside Facebook, or just use it to drive visitors to your website and add value to customers. Gone are the days of strolling down the market street. Facebook is the new marketplace.

Another thing that has me excited at the moment is the new multi-touch ebook format from Apple. I couldn't sleep last night because of all the possibilities and ideas circling in my head. Multi-touch ebooks can easily be created on a Mac with Apples free iBooks Author software! You can create interactive books that include videos, audio files (sfx, music) and 3d objects.

I'm off to a good start this year with all sorts of different jobs to keep me going. Some of the jobs I've been working on are listed below:

• ebook checking for an Australian educational publisher
• email newsletter, PDF and business card designs for a business
• social media for Big Aussie Giveaway and Geckos Family Fun Centre
• copywriting and document management for a business consultant
• a very basic small business website for O'Shea's Automotive
• a book promo trailer video for The Specusphere (a website I manage voluntarily)

I am self-employed and I'm currently the only employee of Greenslade Creations. The more my business grows the more I see clients and prospects face-to-face. In the marketing, copywriting and design business, it is also vital to network. So how am I presenting myself? Fashion and personal grooming aren't my strongest points, so I find I need to think about it from time to time. As a larger woman I also have image issues to overcome.

I have been thinking about ways to set up a Greenslade Creations uniform that will assist my branding and professionalism while I'm out representing my business. My company colours are green, black, white and dark blue. As you can see from my logo, the green is the most prominent colour.

This week I had the privilege of working with a lady in her late 80s who is still very active in her mind. She has been producing a magazine filled with general interest, intellectual items for over a decade using the method of photocopy, cut and paste. She had me over to teach her how to scan and insert pictures in Microsoft Word.

It is always interesting to be invited into the life of someone who is so different to me. My knowledge of magazine layout using the latest software (Adobe CS5) and workflow procedures was almost useless in the face of someone who is still doing it 'the old way'. I was amazed that she goes to all the effort, especially for less than 100 subscribers, but it reminded me of the magazines I used to make as a child using this same method.

I manage Australian Facebook pages for businesses who have no advertising budget and just want the basics done. They want their Facebook page to be managed and increased so that:

• Customer interaction is rewarded and value is added for the customer
• Customer enquiries are answered or directed to the right person offline
• New customers discover the business
• Customers return to the business and spend more money

The first challenge I came across was the fact that Facebook is worldwide. As a page, there is really only one way to reach people only in a certain geographical area—advertising.

But if your business cannot afford to advertise, what else can you do to get more people to LIKE your page? Here are some practices I have tried and my thoughts on the pros and cons for each.

1. Drive people to Facebook from other avenues

2. Posting updates on your own wall regularly

3. Reading your home page feed and commenting
4. @ Tagging other pages, especially ones your page has LIKEd
5. Going out and finding aligned pages to LIKE
6. Going to other pages and posting on their wall
7. Using Facebook as yourself and contacting individuals in the target area

A customer asked me if they would need to budget $1,000 per annum for me to create and manage their Facebook page. Below is the answer I emailed to him.

The long answer is:

The social media costs depend on the business. We would really need to either meet or get on the phone about it. The thing is, it's not just ANY facebook page that I can make succeed, but rather I can make a facebook page for an ACTIVE business succeed. For example, if you are willing to promote the page in all your other marketing materials, and really help drive people to it, and if you are willing to run specials, photo competitions etc., events, send me photos, videos, information and updates, then it can work very very well for you. I will provide advice, questions and suggestions to you along these lines, but what you do with those is up to you. I will continue to do the best I can in any circumstances, but my chances of success are strongly interrelated with the manager's marketing savvy.

What exactly we do on the page determines the cost because the more time it takes me the more I need to charge. So you can look at it that way or you can say to me, right I have a budget of XYZ, what can you do? And the basics can be done. If you really want to drive it to succeed then you go for the maximum option.

Graphic design is a delicate balancing act. Cost, time, quality, taste and branding bear different degrees of weight for each project. There is also the designer-client relationship to consider and with that come all manner of communication and interpersonal issues.

Designers are often under pressure to finish a job by a certain date, so it is tempting to reduce one's desire for the perfect design in favour of getting something done that the client or project leader will like as quickly as possible. Instead of tweaking and tweaking, spending hours on custom fonts or graphics, you can take shortcuts by using stock images, fonts and treating the first few options as drafts or thumbnail sketches the client can consider.

Each designer will draw the line somewhere - the line between a work they consider to be up to scratch and one that simply cannot go to production. By offering step by step previews of work, artists and designers can ensure they are 'on the right track' for their particular project or client.

I came up with an idea to promote my business on friends/family member's facebook pages in a (hopefully) inoffensive way. Using very quick Photoshop efforts I'm offering free photo mashups for people's Facebook pages. To start with I'm choosing some of my Facebook friends and uploading the images and tagging them.

Click here for your free photo mash-up.

Do users of Facebook and Twitter really want to interact with commercial groups or people pushing their own agenda?

Companies and organisations have a goal and a message, something they want to acheive out of any marketing spend on Facebook. But it may be this very goal and message that undermines their effectiveness in social media.

Today I have the pleasure of looking forward to having lunch with a client. Ryll Paul was so happy with the services I provided that she's taking me and my one-year-old son out for lunch! Ryll is an absolutely beautiful lady who has had many ups and downs in her life.

She and I recently worked together on her first published work, a memoir named Pebbles in the Road. Set in Brisbane, Pebbles is a book about love, persistance, family and relationships.

My involvement in Pebbles was as the editor, ebook designer and website designer. You can find out more about the book, or order it online, at www.ryllpaul.com.